


More Than War

by InsignificantCat



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Mostly Gen, Orcs, Orgrimmar, World PVP, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsignificantCat/pseuds/InsignificantCat
Summary: After the fall of Garrosh Hellscream, an Orc shaman is trying to make his peace with the aftermath of the Siege of Orgrimmar. War, however, has other plans for him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	More Than War

**Author's Note:**

> Set in early Warlords of Draenor, after the opening of Highmaul. Comments, criticism and lore corrections very welcome! First time dabbling in World of Warcraft fanfic, so very humble thanks to Juniper Windsong for beta-reading this weird thing! 
> 
> There is a bit of violence, but I've seen much darker storylines in Warcraft canon. And while there are relationships, romance is not the focus.

There was a shift in the air that announced the rise of dawn over Orgrimmar. The smell of the lake intensified and the crawfish started to rustle in the grass. Occasionally, one could hear the soft splash of them breaking the water surface. Maulfin the shaman stretched under the woolen blankets that covered the bedstead. His fingers encountered fabric rather than skin, as they did too often. Mornag’s unit of wolfrider guards would not arrive back from the Mor'shan Ramparts before tomorrow, after a four-week tour of duty. He sighed and ran his fingertips over the bracelet of braided hair and bloodcup flowers around his wrist. Then he rolled out of bed and combed his squashed beard with his fingers.

A quick look into the adjacent chamber showed the children still in deep slumber. Maulfin pulled the blanket up and tucked it under Mrof's chin, then stroked a strand of wet hair out of Nurrin's mouth, smiling at the little girl's unconscious snarl around tiny tusks. Grakh Rageflame’s grandchild. As so often, Maulfin hoped that the fel curse that outwardly marked her bright green skin would not haunt his daughter as it had haunted his father. Right now, however, it looked like the children would sleep for a few more hours. 

Only dressed in his loincloth he stepped through the beaded curtain and onto the street, crossing over to the lake down the road in a brisk trot. The ground was icy under his bare feet. Mist and dusk mixed to shroud huts and lake into a hazy white. It was as quiet as those streets ever got, with only the murmur of the waterfall coming down from the Valley of Wisdom breaking the silence.

He padded across the ancient wooden bridge and stepped into the lake. The water was fresh and ice cold – even the full afternoon sun only warmed it so far, and no sun had shone on it today. Skin prickling and blood rising, he dove in, shuddering from the cold. He swam to the gushing white froth where the water hissed down into the lake and broke on the stones, and let it wash over him. His second element of choice embraced him in greeting. 

The smell of pine resin from an early fire in the Tauren quarter hit his nostrils, and memories welled up unbidden.

He’d missed his birth city with a lingering ache during their exile in the Barrens. Most of Mornag’s unit had proudly joined the Kor’kron. Maulfin’s wife, with two infants and no love for Hellscream, had not. A Kor’kron commander aggressively pursuing her sister Felika had driven her away entirely. At the end, the very elements turned their back on Orgrimmar or were tortured into submission by Hellscream’s dark shamans. With resources tightening, constant requisitions and rumors abounding of dark magics in the caverns underneath the city, they’d slipped out one night with a Tauren trading party. 

One of Mornag’s officers had retired to a small hut at the back of beyond in the Northern Barrens, and Maulfin knew many of the Tauren shamans in the nearby Crossroads. They’d hunted and gathered in the wild, weathering the worst of Kor’kron rule until Baine Bloodhoof had sounded the call to war against Garrosh. Without even speaking together, they’d just left the children with Felika and the little group of Orc refuges there and joined the rebels to liberate their city. Battling his own, some of them familiar faces he’d seen daily since childhood, had left him with a scar he felt would never heal entirely. He, however, had the rightful fury of the elements to vindicate him. How his wife felt about crossing swords with her former comrades and brothers… He’d never been more glad for the children. He wasn’t sure if even her love for him would have stopped her from seeking the pretend glory of death in battle. Every warrior of the Horde had understood General Nazgrim’s choice and last stand, that final day. The Horde had redeemed its soul, but Garrosh Hellscream had left it with a wound that would bleed for a generation. 

He suddenly became aware of the cold that had seeped into his body like ice, making his teeth chatter. It was time – he needed to take those memories, offer them up to earth and air and cleanse himself of it all, or he would never be free. 

He briskly washed himself, then returned to the shallow end of the lake to tie his dripping hair and beard into their customary braids.

The jog back to the hut dried most of the water from his skin and brought a bit of warmth back into his limbs. He stepped in just long enough to hang his nightcloth up to dry, dress in short leather trousers and a weapon belt, and have a last look in through the curtain at his sleeping children. Nurrin had been instructed to see Felika for breakfast. Mother Miwanna in the Tauren settlement or the orphanage matrons would be there if they needed anything else. The Drag took care of its children. 

He checked the hems of his herb bag in the halflight, then folded it into his backpack, grabbed his hand axe and the light leather shield, and set off.

He caught sight of Felika coming down the Drag, packed with the day’s wares. She smiled as she drew closer. There had been days when everyone, himself included, had expected they’d wed once they reached the proper age. His closest childhood friend. Then her fel-skinned warrior sister had captured his heart, and passion had flared in him for the first time. Mornag was fire to his earth and water, and by then he’d been shaman enough to understand. In some cases, men of the clans chose to bond with more than one woman, often sisters, or a female with two consorts. But Felika had just kissed them both when they offered, and decided to choose another.

He tried to press a handful of coppers into her hand to pay for the breakfast the children would have from her when they woke up. She laughed and punched him, and he kissed her cheek. It was worth seeing her smile after losing her mate to the Kor'kron in the bloodred chaos that had been the Siege of Orgrimmar. 

He left her to her tasks and set off into the Drag, acknowledging the grunts who guarded the streets. They barely glanced back at him, hanging in there for the last hour of their night shift. 

He passed the orphanage where he’d been a frequent guest when his father struggled with the demon blood after losing first his mate, Maulfin’s mother Frekkis, to a scorpid while herbing in the Durotar desert, and soon after his two older sons. Maulfin had few memories of his brothers, who were growing into warriors when he was born, and met their end in the wastes of Northrend soon after. Sudden, violent rages drove Grakh Rageflame out of the city in a mad bloodlust he took out on the surrounding Quillboar and harpies, if he didn't dull the symptoms in the Cleft of Shadows with his few surviving comrades, smoking blindweed pipes. 

There had always been food at the orphanage, and the stories of old Matron Battlewail who’d fought in the Second War and then dedicated the rest of her life to the children of its many victims. 

This early in the morning, even most of the Horde’s heroes still slept. He passed only one, a messy-haired Tauren paladin resting atop his mount in the barbaric armor style that screamed of the distant world of Draenor, the mysterious land that drained Horde warriors. 

Outside Grommash Hold, he stopped quickly at Olvia’s meat stand to buy a slice of the day’s roasted pork in a flatbread and devoured it on the short way to the auction house. His travel bag wanted replacing, ideally with a larger satchel, and perhaps some spice bread for the road. As always, the smell of herbs, leather, metal and many more intriguing things from exotic places across Azeroth and beyond filled his nostrils. He savored the faint thrill. The goblin nightshift was still behind the counters, bleary-eyed like the guards outside and waiting for their shift to end. Maulfin approached the most awake-looking of the lot, and was treated to grimace. 

Seeing the price on bags, he decided to settle for just some spice bread and a skinful of pricklevine juice. As the goblin disappeared into the back to find his order, he glanced around. The only other patron was a blood elf engrossed in a ledger of gems. A dark-haired, slender creature in flowing blue robes, wrapped in a long cloak of darker blue against the morning chill. A mage or priest, he assumed, as he didn’t sense any fel aura coming off her. 

Common men and women did not usually meet the eyes of their defenders without good reason, but Maulfin inclined his head – a hero of the Horde deserved no less. The Sindorei caught his eye and gave him a surprisingly sweet smile. Maybe the chill and early hour took the edge off that infamous blood elf arrogance. 

The goblin overseeing the ledgers was dozing delicately, her long nose almost resting on her chest. When her colleague returned with Maulfin’s spice loaf wrapped in a cloth, he bonked her between the ears and she woke with a yelp and a dirty look. 

Maulfin counted out a handful of silver and copper and put the food into his bag. He politely nodded at the Sindorei, who still compared gem prices in her ledgers. A sculpted brow arched up. She lifted her hand, rings flashing, and swept him a bow that was half mockery, half self-mockery. He felt the corner of his mouth curl up as he strode outside.

The guards at Orgrimmar’s main gate barely nodded at him when he marched up. There were not many familiar faces left. The old guards Maulfin had known all his life had been replaced – some bloodily – with Kor’kron troops when Hellscream took over as Warchief, and few would have had any interest in befriending those. The new guard was interspersed with Trolls and Tauren, more representative of Kalimdor and the Horde as a whole. Maulfin approved, but they were still strangers.

He’d decided the day before not to bring a mount. The stables were on the other end of the city and since Mornag had taken Speckles, their direwolf, with her to Mor’shan, he would have had to rent an unfamiliar wolf. Moreover, he’d set this day aside for himself. Even a mount would intrude upon his solitude.

Instead, he paused for a moment, deeply breathing in the cool air and let it touch the ghost wolf coiled into a small ball inside his mind, gently letting all four elements sing over it until he felt his muscles shift, fur sliding over his skin. Gravity shifted until he dropped onto all fours. With it came a sudden rush of scent, filling his world even as his vision greyed out. The Tauren guard nearest to him bared massive teeth in a grin. 

The metal-studded plates were chilly under his paws as he entered the main tunnel leading out of Orgrimmar, but the cool would not last. He set off in the tireless trot that would carry him across Durotar and stretched his wolf muscles pleasantly. Light, still whitish but with a promise of heat, greeted him at the end of the tunnel. 

The feel and smells of Durotar were a homecoming of their own. Sharp, omnipresent dust without the tang of dry grass that penetrated all of the Barrens. Faint hints of metal from the Kor’kron towers that still loomed between Orgrimmar and the eastern coast. The stink of animals. 

The farming village outside the city had barely stirred yet. A half-grown youth was leaning against a fence, braiding his hair. A woman slouched in the doorway of a hut, greeting the new day still bare-breasted in only a skimpy loincloth. The sight reminded him of Mornag rising from their sleeping furs, tousled and smiling, her muscular arms reaching for him. The farm woman caught his lingering gaze and her mouth turned down in a sign of contempt. She did not bother to turn away or cover herself. The boar farmers around Durotar were a proud lot with little regard for city dwellers like Maulfin. 

He moved onwards, turning east into the open desert rather than towards the ravine that would lead to Razor Hill and Sen'jin Village beyond. The sun started to warm his fur, and a layer of dust already coated his paws and sides. He set an easy path south across the open plain, weaving his way around visible predators. There had been too much blood recently to fight without need. 

The cool scent of water from Thunder Ridge hit his nose from afar as he approached the sandstone cliffs. On impulse, he changed his course towards it. It was an unnecessary delay, but a tempting one. Soon, the regular dust gave way to smooth, red stone boulders. He had to climb up before being able to see the water. The sandstones hid the blue depths of the ridge like petals ringing the heart of a flower. He’d come here with Mornag often before the children were born, to hunt, eat, swim and make love secluded between the cliffs. A few more years, and the children would be strong enough swimmers to come with them.

He picked one boulder that sloped down into the water, and let the wolf slide back inside him. Then he removed boots, trousers and his leather pack. Sun-baked stone radiated through his feet and legs, whispering with the memory of dawn and the water below. Greeting the element, he dove head-first into the blue depths. They embraced him kindly as a shaman, where the shock of sudden cold would have knocked the breath out of anybody else. From above, the water had looked like solid blue glass, but sinking below the surface, he could see to the very bottom of the stone lake. Far, far down, there was gravel and the occasional lumpy grey mound. With two strokes, he returned to the surface and took a few deep, regular breaths. Then he dove down again. The bottom of the lake had become the grave of the giant thunder lizards that hadn’t walked the sands of Durotar in many years. Down here, however, they lay preserved – or perhaps slept – cocooned in their own elemental magic.

When they had been younger, during their shaman training, Maulfin and his friends had swum down here, challenging each other to withstand the electrical charges of the sleeping giants until Master Gorlek had found out and beaten them bloody when one of their number had nearly drowned.

He swam deeper, his strong legs propelling him towards the nearest thunder lizard. He felt the pressure in his chest, lungs starting to clamor for air. He stretched out one hand. The thunder lizard’s grey hide felt old, cold, with ancient power still thrumming underneath the skin. Without warning, it sparked an electric jolt that knocked half of the remaining air out of his lungs in a stream of bubbles. He moaned without being aware as the power coursed through him. It would paralyze and root him down here on the bottom of the lake if he didn’t manage to pull away, chaining him to the lizard in a rope of lightning until he died. His feet found purchase on the lakebed, and he propelled himself upward. Another volt and the energy might kill even a trained shaman, or knock him unconscious to drown. Every inch of his skin was still humming with energy as he reached the surface, head thrown back to draw air deep into his lungs. His braid hit the water behind him with a splash. He dragged himself back onto the stone and lay there on his stomach as the thrill faded. Air caressed his lungs, and tiny currents vibrated through his flesh. The energy would serve him well on the long way ahead. 

Maulfin wrung out his dripping braid, filled his water skin with fresh, cold water, and slid back into ghost wolf form. Dirt and dry grass crackled below his paws as he set an easy pace south. The desert he now crossed was the hunting ground of the Razor Hill herbalists and a few resident hill shamans The wolf’s nose sifted through the scents of the desert, aided by borrowed power. The scorpids among the stones, like dry, acidic sweat, he avoided. The tang of herbs guided his way – the calm, sweet note of peacebloom, the sun-soaked, sharp smell of silverleaf, a rare, dusky scent of earthroot. The first two peaceblooms he passed by. They were still young, their stems fragile, blooms too small to develop the potency Yelmak the alchemist required in his healing potions. 

The Kor’kron had gone through the desert like locusts for herbs, ore and meat, razing the very stone to fuel Hellscream’s war machine. Durotar’s plant and wildlife would take years to recover. And just like every shaman, even the twisted creatures that lived among the Quillboar, he’d help the land’s struggles, even if Orgrimmar's alchemists complained about the lack of peacebloom and earthroot for their recipes. Silverleaf, faster-growing and durable, was more plentiful, and he harvested three nodes before reaching the great watershed. 

The smallest peacebloom he passed he dug up, roots and all, and put it into the side pocket of his herb pouch along with a handful of surrounding soil. There was one more small detour, some final salute to the past to be made, before he could travel on. 

He found the spot a few minutes later, an unremarkable stone just where the desert gave rise to the sloping cliffs of the Razor Hill canyons. A flat stone Maulfin had carved himself once he'd perfected his earth-shaping powers – the silhouette of a wolf, his tribute to Frekkis of the Frostwolf clan. The sand somehow never quite covered the small stone. 

They had buried Maulfin’s mother where she'd died, defending herself against a desert scorpid with only her herbalist knife. She had killed the monster, but succumbed to its deadly poison soon after. Grakh Rageflame had hung on until Maulfin was a few years older, then went away to surrender to his blood rage one last time. Weeks later, a Horde patrol came across his body in the Demon Fall canyon in Ashenvale, discarded by the demons who’d finally slain him. The outriders had burned his father’s body and scattered his remains at Demon Fall instead of bringing such an unquiet spirit back to Orgrimmar. Maulfin paused for an instant, imagining the ashes of his father floating around the monument of his hero Grommash Hellscream, buffeted by the winds of those hostile canyons. Rageflame’s final, eternal stand against the demons whose blood had poisoned his life. 

Now, he pulled out the small peacebloom and made a hollow in the dirt before the stone. He soaked it with some water from his flask, and then put the tiny plant inside, folding back the earth around it and patting it down gently. A few more splashes of water brimming with thunder lizard sparks, and some sand on top of it to prevent the sun from burning the fluid away immediately. Silvery leaves and white blooms rose up into the world with courage. Maulfin smiled and bowed in a wordless salute to the women of his ancestry. A moment later, the grey ghost wolf ran south.

By now, the sun had been well out for a while, and filled the air with the smell of baked earth and stale, half-fermented water plants. Mosquitoes started to collect in a cloud around Maulfin's dusty fur. Snarls and shaking did nothing to discourage them.

The watery smells from the Southfury Watershed were more shallow and earthy than the clean depths of Thunder Ridge. Muddy rivulets wetted Maulfin's paws as he passed through the flood plains. He nearly stepped on a dozing crocolisk in the weeds beside a rock once and left a tuft of tail hair in its maws as he jumped aside. Racing off, he gave the scaled predator a tongue-lolling wolf laugh as it crawled a few angry paces after him before returning to its hiding place to wait for slower prey.

Coming closer, the gnarled vines that showed the presence of Quillboar habitats started to loom in the distance. The giant growths looked bigger than he remembered, and a vibrant green. Nobody, it seemed, had tried to drive the Razormane back into the mountains since the Kor’kron had vanished. He kept himself close to the rocks and boulders as he continued west. No Orc feared a Quillboar, but walking into a war party still meant death unless you were a proven champion of the Horde. His fur bristled at the thought. 

He was now fast approaching the mountains, where cliffs and outcrops sheltered the frayed tents and fireplaces the Razormane called home. Quillboar were scattered like grey lumps along the bottom off the cliffs, and Maulfin passed them at a distance.

His eyes on movement in the distance, he dashed around a rock and straight into a hiss and an onslaught of red scales and claws. He avoided it with a quick jump to the side, crashing against the rock while scrambling to shift his body into transformation. Ghost wolf form was for running, not fighting, its teeth and claws equally immaterial. The scaly claws of the bloodtalon scythemaw shot past him, and now he could smell its presence - dust, scales, and scarlet rage. He got his Orc feet under himself, still awkwardly crouching on the ground, and blindly groped for his weapons, which had fallen to the ground along with his backpack. Then the saurid was over him again.

The thorned, whipping tail opened a gash down Maulfin's thigh as he twisted aside and - at last - found purchase. Axe in hand, he rolled away behind the scythemaw, and struck. The blow cracked a few of the scales on the lizard's back, producing a chilling hiss that was more rage than pain. A quick glance showed no nest or eggs among the stones. He had disturbed this scythemaw napping between the rocks, not a breeding female in its lair. The deadly sharp front claws came at him again and went for the skin of his belly, while the maw snapped at his face.

He struck at the claws and was met with an ear-splitting howl and a spray of green blood on his face and chest. The scythemaw stumbled, cradling its half-severed arm with the other in a curiously Orc-like gesture. Maulfin used the moment to surge forward and bury his axe in the smaller, softer scales on the side of the creature's neck. It screeched, pure pain this time, and toppled. The undamaged claw closed tight, then fell open limply. The tail thrashed two more times, before it also stilled. 

Maulfin sucked in a harsh breath before pulling his axe free. Blood soaked out of the wound as if the scales of had liquefied. He bowed his head once in respect to a worthy enemy, then grabbed the hunting knife from his pouch and opened the carcass. Two good sized chunks of scythemaw shoulder, preserved with a low-level frost shock, went into the pack. One would make for a fitting gift, the other one would be smoked over the fire pit of the hut for them to enjoy in the coming weeks. Satisfied he rose - and froze.

Two pairs of Quillboar eyes stared straight at him from only some feet away. The dust-colored quills, skin and rags blended into the surroundings to near perfection. He had not even heard them coming. There was no knowing how long they’d watched, but the ugly face of the taller one was curved in a mocking smile. The Razormane Quillboar tribe harbored a vicious hatred against all things Orc ever since the clans had settled in Durotar and taken part of the land for themselves and their Horde allies.

Maulfin put down the pack at the foot of the nearest rock, stepped clear of the scythemaw carcass and raised his axe again. The Quillboar’s grin sharpened. Then they lunged. 

Maulfin touched the marks imprinted under his skin a long time ago, calling forth first a slowing and then a healing totem. The smaller Quillboar carried a long, serrated stone knife and a short spear, the taller one only a knife and a short gnarled stick. However, he saw the telltale swirl of energy circling around the creature, as black as its rags but unmistakable. However primitive and twisted, the Quillboar commanded the sands and dust its people lived in. 

Reaching into himself again, he sent a flame shock at the charging Quillboar. They jumped apart, avoiding it barely. The shorter creature, quills and rags on its shoulder singed, screeched in rage. It was a shrill, piercing noise, going through and right beyond Orcish hearing range and left a sharp pain in Maulfin's head. He had time enough to block the first spear strike with his axe, and a quick thunderstorm spell sent the Quillboar flying. This time, its furious squeal was broken by a dull thud. 

Maulfin turned to the shaman who was coming at him again. Two of the dust balls swirling around the creature hit his arm and back, dull sandblasts of pain that set his teeth on edge. Numbness spread into his shield hand. He raised his axe and brought it down on the Quillboar’s head. The weapon descended much slower than he’d hoped, and he glimpsed a misshapen grey glow behind the shaman – the creature’s own earthbind totem. The Quillboar screamed and tumbled back as the blade cut into its shoulder instead of the neck Maulfin had aimed for. Not enough force to hit bone, but a nasty flesh wound nonetheless. It dropped its knife, but its other hand tightened into a fist. The gray bolt of an earth shock caught Maulfin in the stomach and threw him backwards. He wheezed. Dark fog danced in front of his eyes, but he forced it back. If he passed out now, he was dead. Mustering all his strength, he threw another flame shock that hit the shaman straight in the chest, through the offensive shield that didn’t block elemental energy, made only for dealing damage. The creature had no time to scream again. A fist-sized, smoking hole marred the center of its chest, eyes already broken as it fell. 

There was a rustling sound behind him. Maulfin tried to turn when a line of fire shot through his side. He heard the sound of flesh tearing as the spear pierced his skin. Gnashing his teeth, he rolled around, catching the Quillboar’s knife with his shield, but the weight of the creature knocked him onto his back. Green blood from his wound smeared the stones below him. He kicked at the Quillboar when it lunged again, and staggered to his feet. The creature stumbled back, hissed, and hurled a handful of sand into his face. Maulfin protected his eyes with his shield and rushed forward with a roar, axe raised. 

Orcish size gave him an advantage over the smaller enemy. The Razormane ducked away, hoping to evade and block the axe with his spear. It wasn’t fast enough. Maulfin’s blade caught the side of its skull, biting into the thin skin. Dirt-colored blood streaming down its face, it let out the horrible Quillboar screech that made every one of Maulfin's muscles tense in pain. The wound and Maulfin’s sheer body weight bore it to the ground and Maulfin brought the axe down hard on its neck, just to shut off the horrible sound. At first, he barely noticed it had stopped. The creature’s legs twitched, then stilled. The wound in its neck showed splinters of bone. The axe had half-severed the head from its body. 

Breathing hard, Maulfin wiped the blade on the colorless rags of the Razormane’s cloak, then leaned against a rock. The spear wound on his hip still oozed blood, but it was just some torn flesh, although there might be some internal damage from the earth shock he’d taken. Before the children, he might have gone without tending to his injuries, bragging to his friends about how well he healed, and how fast. Now, there was a journey to be completed and a family to return to. He wasn’t going to give potential enemies the chance to follow the scent of his blood.

He stepped away, leaving the two dead Quillboar in the stony outcrop along with the scythemaw, and settled down behind one of the boulders into a cross-legged position. Calling upon the healing powers of water, he could feel a sluggish echo from the stagnant pools of the Watershed, and a fainter one from the river beyond. Soothing calm swept over the spear wound, knitting skin and washing over cuts and bruises. He remained motionless until he was sure the healing had taken hold, reassured that no immediate threats loomed around him. The currents would have alerted him otherwise. At last, he let the water flow back into his mind and got up. The gashes had healed to faint green lines, although he still felt them underneath his skin, and would for days. 

The mountains of the Razormane Chain rose ahead of him, rust-colored peaks that sheltered the heartland of Orcish settlement in Durotar to the south, and, together with the Southfury River, marked the border of the Barrens in the east. The Peak of the Dormant Flame rose up like a thumb spread out from the rest of the hand, not far off the river. Approaching it, Maulfin now felt the full brunt of the midday sun at its peak. It burned the baked gravel of the ground and radiated back into his body.

Ghost wolf form made the heat more bearable despite the fur. At least, panting though his mouth cooled him down. He crossed the final distance to the foot of the mountain without incident. There, he paused for a few minutes in the shelter of a rocky outcrop, shifting forms to refresh himself with the flask of pricklevine juice and the spice bread loaf he’d bought at the auction house. The desert lay quiet in the sun. Not even a breath of wind disturbed the blades of dry grass that had struggled through the sand. The river, about a mile off, tingled his nose with the faintest scent of water. The sun’s position told him that it was around the first midday hour. 

Memory led him to the start of the path leading up to the peak, and he made this way up at a steady pace. Scores of shamans had left their foot and paw prints on the faint path, first during training, later in reverence. He could almost feel their presence around him. 

It was a rocky ascent still. He had to shift into Orc form to move across steep passages that required hands to grasp rock, first only on occasion, then more frequently. Further up, the wind came to life as well, hot, full of trickery and unbroken by any vegetation. Not even dry bushes survived the Durotar mountain ranges. At times he more felt than saw the path winding ahead of him, pulling himself over blocks of rock by his hands alone. The wind dried the sweat on his skin and the rock under his palms went deep in a way that might suck you in, body and mind, if you let it. 

The spirit stone did not crown the mountain top itself, but a flat outcropping just below. Maulfin pulled himself up the last few steps, rounded the ragged blocks of rock expanse and reached his destination. It looked alien against the red dust all around it, a black, gleaming monolith with a blue fire symbol etched into its surface. Maulfin wondered if some other species had ever climbed these heights, and marveled at how the stone had been carried up the forbidding mountainside. It hadn’t. The earliest Horde shamans had called it up from the fiery core of Azeroth, and marked it with the sign of their element as a pact with their new world. There were other spirit stones dotted across the world, but this was where Maulfin had been initiated, the place that resonated with him the most. 

His gaze shifted and caught the guardian. The withered gray-blue skin of the old Troll made him almost a shadow against the rock. Even knowing that Telf Jolaam had made his home in a small cave further down the mountain, he could not remember ever coming up here and not finding the ancient Farseer at the sacred rock. Then again, he _was_ a Farseer. Maulfin bowed to the shaman who had trained and guided him through his Trial of Fire. 

"Maulfin," Jolaam acknowledged without surprise. The Darkspear accent made even an Orc’s name sound melodic. "It’s been a while." The last time they’d met, Jolaam had been among the Elders lending their weight to the cause of Vol’jin and Thrall outside Razor Hill before the final assault on Orgrimmar and Hellscream. Smalltalk had not been on anyone’s mind in that dark place. "How’s de cubs?"

"Growing like fungal spores," Maulfin said. 

A grin split the grey Troll face. "An' de warrior woman, hm?" 

Maulfin’s fingers went to the thin braided band of hair around his wrist, the small flowers woven within. Soft and wilted, but not dry. 

"Hale," he answered with the same rush of relief and wonder the charm always brought. 

"Good, good," the old Troll cackled. "An' our old Shadow Hunter, he be doin' well in de big city?"

Maulfin gave this a thought for a moment, aware that the reach of the ancient Troll went far beyond his mountain top, and that this wasn’t mere curiosity about city gossip.

"More than we could have asked for," he finally acknowledged. An eyebrow lifted encouragingly. "Yes, some hotheads are grumbling over having a Warchief who’s not an Orc," he went on, forcing his hand not to fiddle with the straps of his pack. "But Saurfang has them in check, and they don’t grumble too loudly." He paused. "The Earth Warder… he couldn’t have come back."

"No," Jolaam agreed and clicked his tongue against his tusk. "He couldn't. An' he’d be first to admit it, dat one." 

They’d brought the Alliance into Orgrimmar, Thrall and Vol’jin, that would never sit easy on an Orc leader. It didn’t sit easy on Maulfin, and he’d gone to battle beside them. He didn’t have to spell it out to his old teacher, though. He’d been there. 

"So you be comin' to call on de elements," Jolaam finally broke the heavy silence.

"With your blessing," Maulfin said. "I seek… peace." It felt like a strange thing say.

"Dis be a good place to seek. Whatever ya may find." Jolaam rose with a creak from his aged bones. Maulfin followed suit and undid the strings of his pack. 

"A gift," he said, handing over the package of scythemaw meat. Jolaam unfolded the leather wrapping and studied the frozen content, then clicked his tongue again in approval. 

"I’ll be leavin' ya to it, den" he said, turning to the path. Maulfin bowed again to the stooped reclining back. 

He didn’t touch the black surface of the sacred stone. It wasn’t what he'd come for. Instead, he put down his axe and shield at the back of the platform and walked towards the edge. The wind hissed around the exposed cliff, cooler this high up, drying the last sweat from his climb. He sat down cross-legged right above the drop, the stone warm and heavy under his bare feet. The view was breath-taking – over the mountains, the Southfury River, across the grassy plains of the Barrens beyond until the grassland turned into hills, then mountains. He’d hunted and herbed in those barren hills, avoiding the Kor’kron not so very long ago. At the horizon, the Stonetalon Mountains which sheltered the lands of the Tauren faded into the sky. 

After long minutes, he closed his eyes and let himself feel the mountain beneath him. The sun-baked plateau, over which the wind played, chasing sand and gravel. The rock underneath, cool, silent, running deep and ever deeper until you could lose yourself in its utter depth. He’d learned how not to in his training, of course, but still felt himself sinking into the stone, body going motionless, breath very slow and deep. Deep below, underneath the mountain range, far below the earth, he sensed the molten sludge of lava, and knew that one day, he might call up a handful of liquid stone which would cool into the same smooth black as the spirit stone. Not this day, however. There was peace in those depths, but not the one he sought.

He pulled himself back up from the stone, brushing the dreaming minds of a few earth elementals that probably hadn’t stirred into awareness here in the tectonic peace of the Durotar mountains since the Cataclysm shook the world. Even when he opened his eyes, the earth still filled his mind with the heavy, uncompromising calm that had first called to him. 

He rose, slowly against the weight, and shook some life into his fingers and toes. The sun had moved eastwards, circling further into the afternoon. The wind prickled against his skin, toying with his braids. He breathed mountain air deep into his lungs, letting the element run through him and feeling it rush outside with every exhale. He didn’t need to fly. His mind soared up with the winds like a bird, over the rock and the cliffs and into the thin, cold air above the mountain. He was aware of the self-absorbed sighs of air elementals rustling about on their own business – mostly sheer enjoyment. The fresh tang of the river rose up to surround him as the occasional bird soared by on lazy wings. 

It took a while for him to place the faint scent in the air that did color the wind from the east. An almost imperceptible tang of smoke and iron. Easy to ignore as the far-off flock of flying mounts soaring down the river valley out of the Barrens. Unease trickled down Maulfin’s back like the many legs of an insect. Something was wrong. Had been. Would be. He’d never experienced a sensation quite like it, but the memory echoed through him. Smoke. Blood. His city, burning. 

His city. His children.

Despite the afternoon sun, he was suddenly cold. He opened his eyes and stepped back from the cliff, away from the pull of the wind. Without surprise, he saw the guardian peering up at him from a crouch near the sacred stone. 

"Ya saw somethin'." It wasn’t a question.

"A battle, I think." The shiver was back, shaking him. 

"Not a memory?" Jolaam asked.

"I smelled ash in the wind. Iron. From the east." Orgrimmar. His face distorted in a grimace of fear. "My children are alone. If we’re under attack…" If the Iron Horde had come to Azeroth to take revenge for the assault on their homeworld… "I have to go!"

"Ya looked far, Maulfin, for de first time," Jolaam rasped. "Some see de present, some de future. Ya’ll learn de difference wid time." Maulfin barely heard him. He grabbed his pack and reached for his weapons. A four-fingered hand closed around his wrist. 

"Orgrimmar be far away." The old troll frowned. "Ya won’ reach it before nightfall. Ya not a hero of de Horde on a flyin' mount."

He was not. But he was a shaman. The pit of his stomach lurched. Ugly deaths often awaited those who meddled with powers beyond their station. 

Earth might crush without realizing, wholly focused on itself and its own depth, while fire might incinerate an Orc along with everything it could reach just because it was its nature. Water and air, however, had some agency. Water might drown out of curiosity, and feel a faint regret that the dead thing it had swallowed up was less interesting now than before. Air, though, was drawn to intellect, and could display a streak of capricious cruelty.

Jolaam’s eyes never left his, gray pinpricks under half-closed lids in a face as impassive as the Durotar sand. 

"Ya lack trainin'. An' preparedness." There were rituals to summon even the slight, flighty air elementals Maulfin’s mind had touched during his spirit journey. And those were a far cry from what he needed.

"Ol' Telf can be makin' de call for ya," the old Troll said, grimacing. "If ya be certain?"

"I am," Maulfin replied. Certainty lay in his chest like a rock, like a mountain.

"But he can't bargain for ya." Jolaam grimaced again, as if he’d bitten into a foul cactus apple. Maulfin nodded. He had nothing to bargain with either.

The ancient shaman stepped up to the cliff’s edge. His mind snapped out into the air beyond with a sharpness Maulfin could almost see while his lips moved in a soundless incantation to whichever Darkspear loa he worshipped. For long minutes, there was nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, the wind intensified. Cool gusts swirled around the plateau, brushing sand and pebbles down into the depths. The rune on the spirit stone started to glow in a bright blue. Maulfin felt his braids whip around his head and the wind flattened even the grey bristles on the old Troll’s head. 

A vortex started to materialize in front of the plateau, sand-colored yellow milling with white, grey, and even a few black swirls. Piercing black dots that might be eyes burned in the upper half of the creature. A prickle of fear ran through Maulfin. This was to the common elementals he’d learned to command like a dune mouse was to a mountain lion.

"You have called forth Southran, Prince of Air and Herald to the Court of Al’Akir, mortals!" The voice hissed like a storm in the mountains, like a knot of snakes. "Why does the Earthen Ring call upon the Kingdom of the Skies?"

A named member of the Court of the Four Winds. The world spun a few times in front of Maulfin’s eyes. This was a creature a hero of the Horde at his full strength might meet, not a nobody like him. 

"De Earthen Ring doesn't call on ya, Prince Southran," Jolaam answered, in a tone much more calm than the situation warranted. "Myself, Telf Jolaam, be requestin' yer attention on behalf of dis former student - Maulfin, shaman of Orgrimmar."

The air prince’s black eyes shifted to Maulfin. 

"Maulfin of Orgrimmar," he repeated in a tone as if he was watching something with too many legs crawling across his plate. "You dare put a request to me?" There was an incredulous undertone to the rumbling voice. 

"I petition for swift transport to Orgrimmar," Maulfin said. His voice sounded alien to his own ears. "I sense that it is under attack. My children are there, alone."

"What care the winds if the ants that crawl on this world bite each other?" the creature hissed. 

A tendril of air shot out of the swirling mass and curled around Maulfin’s chest. A second later, he was yanked off the cliff into thin air, dangling over the endless chasm below and held up only by the grey band of smoke cutting into the flesh under his arms. His axe sheath and shield dug cruelly into his back. The world spun again, and he felt his stomach rise. He did not want to look down. He did not want to look at the glowing coals that passed for the air prince's eyes either. If the elemental withdrew his grip, all that remained of Maulfin would be a smear of blood on the sands below. 

Swallowing hard to keep down the contents of his stomach, Maulfin looked up. The air prince swirled in front of his eyes, grey mist that smelled of cool winds and far-off hills Maulfin would never see.

"There is no dishonor in a shaman seeking to bargain with the elements," he said. Strangely enough, his voice was audible through the wind and the compression around his chest. He could not see Jolaam, but hoped the old Troll would escape the elemental’s wrath. 

"Bargain?" Southran hissed, shaking him like a rag puppet. "You are nothing to the Court of Air! What would you have to offer Al’Akir’s Herald?"

"I offer my life, dedicated to the service of Air," he answered simply, quoting the oath he’d sworn years ago in the ceremony that had made him a shaman. Most of them gravitated to one element over the span of their adult lives. Maulfin had dedicated himself to earth and air then. Today, it seemed, would mark his final choice. If he lived. 

The tendril pulled him closer to the smoking eyes. "How well would I be served by an ant?" the creature asked, shaking him like a child might a spiny lizard it had picked up in the grass. 

Suddenly, Maulfin was tired. His family was in danger. He had nothing more to offer.

"Time will tell," he said. "I would not waste your time further, Prince Southran. Drop me, or take me to Orgrimmar."

The tendril shook him again, then loosened around his chest. His stomach cramped and his hands clenched. He forced his face to remain impassive. Death was everywhere. It was nothing to fear.

"It might cost you more than your life," the air prince growled in a way that made his skin crawl. "Let me return the beetle to its dunghill then."

Maulfin was swung around so fast it almost tore a scream from him. The cliff and a glimpse of Jolaam’s worried face flew past his vision, then he was flung far out into the air. The river suddenly rushed towards him. The tendril around his chest tightened again, pulling him closer to the vortex of the elemental’s body. He wasn’t falling – he was flying! 

The curved bend of the river dipped into view below him once more, then vanished in a sudden arc as the cloud prince swept into another curve. The elemental rushed ahead in strange circular movements, like a woman swinging her hips in a long, flowing skirt. The speed took Maulfin's breath away. He dangled from the air prince's grip like a newborn cheetah cub being carried by the neck by its mother. Cold air whipped his face, and only his shaman-trained self-control protected him from vertigo. 

Far below, the Quillboar vines were green lines on the ground, and for the first time Maulfin overlooked the talon-shaped waterways of the Southfury Watershed in their entirety. 

The elemental dipped into another downswing, and the top plateaus of Razorwind Canyon, the habitat of the harpies, swept into view. He caught a glimpse of tiny brown dots along the cliffs where the creatures sheltered from the late afternoon sun. 

Unease grew inside his stomach like strings winding into a knot the closer they came to Orgrimmar, despite the splendor of the view below him. The air prince at his back was a presence of cold, surly disapproval. He hadn’t spoken since sweeping Maulfin off the mountain, and Maulfin still couldn’t explain why he’d not just dropped him to his death.

They swung further west again, towards Thunder Ridge that looked like a rust-colored, flesh-eating flower from the air, red petals circling a dark blue core. The spiked walls of Orgrimmar were now coming into view in the far distance, dark shapes against the ring of mountains and hills sheltering the city. The air prince swept him across the ridge and towards the shattered skeletons of the siege towers that had been left outside the city walls. The elemental dropped lower and now a touch of smoke reached Maulfin’s nose. He craned his neck and stared down. 

There was indeed smoke curling up from the roof of one of the boar farmers' huts in the village, and closer to the ground he could make out a few motionless shapes on the sand. The enemy, it seemed, had first turned its wrath on famers and boars alike. One of the huts was in ruins, the bone structure shattered, leather hides lying in the dust. Maulfin growled deep in his throat, not looking closely at the bodies for fear of seeing the smiling youth or the proud female he’d passed in the morning among them.

More bodies littered the sandy ground outside Orgrimmar's main gates, dead city guards and their war wolves mostly, but also one or two heroes of the Horde who hadn't been saved. Between them lay a few shapes with blue and gold glittering on their tabards and shields. 

Maulfin’s heart skipped a beat. Not the Iron Horde, then. It was the Alliance – the same Alliance who’d fought side by side with them against Hellscream, only a few months ago!

Mind reeling with shock, Maulfin scanned the gates. Scorch marks on the sand and on the mail armor of the guards showed that magic, too, had been employed by the enemy to force their way into the city. Beside the left gate lay a huge green creature that still leaked blood into the dirt, with leathery wings and a long, serpentine neck sliced to shreds by the grunts’ axes. The guards had brought down a protodrake!

"Ants!" The air prince broke the silence at last, and it was impossible to say if the creature’s voice sounded in is ears or in his mind. "Hacking each other to death over nothing." He shook Maulfin with the air tentacle. "Are you proud of them, ‘Maulfin of Orgrimmar’?"

"We didn’t provoke this," Maulfin snarled, turning in the grip that held him so he could glare at the burning-coal eyes of the elemental. "Do your kind not do battle?"

A drawn-out hiss. "With matched opponents, yes. For joy, and to shape the world. Like this? No!"

Southran whirled upwards, pulling him up to the red cliffs above the ramparts, now empty of guards. Every available warrior must have rushed down to fight the invaders. The elemental radiated displeasure, whether at Maulfin’s words or at the sight of the slaughter below. Probably at him, Maulfin thought. 

Below him swung the leather and bone canopies that provided the outskirts of the city with some shade against the merciless Durotar sun and protected it from falling stones and aerial assaults. He could now see the cross-tiered bridge that connected the Valley of Strength with the higher-up Valley of Wisdom where Orgrimmar's Trolls and Goblins lived. The Valley of Strength further down was dominated by the huge circular round of Grommash Hold, the Warchief’s residence. The attackers milled about like toy figures in the square outside the Hold, battling defenders around the narrow round passages that led inside. The clash of weapons, screams and the hissing of spells was audible even up here.

Maulfin envisioned Alliance troops marauding through the streets and encountering Nurrim and Mrof. He squirmed against the air tendril that held him.

"You are where you wanted to be, little farseeing flea," the air prince growled against his neck. "Do not forget what you owe – though you might find out about that sooner rather than later!"

Before Maulfin could make any response, the tendril around his chest whirled him over the canopy far above the drop between the two valleys, and vanished. 

Suddenly falling, Maulfin desperately reached for a spell that could save him. Crashing to the ground from this height would kill him outright, or leave him with broken bones, an easy prey for the Alliance. And then he understood. 

It was a spell difficult to execute, especially in midair, but he’d sworn himself to Air after all. A gust of wind rushed up between him and the ground, slowing his fall. He barely missed the razor-sharp spikes on the roof of the hut below him, sailing across the chasm and towards the ramp. He had ghost wolf form ready upon impact, landing hard on all four paws and skidding into the bone railing. Far above, the sound of hissing laughter was fading into the distance. 

The crash turned his world black for a moment, until a battle shout shook him awake. He stumbled to his feet just in time to see an Orc warrior charge at him from the valley below, axe raised high. Maulfin managed to shift out of wolf form just in time before the furious Orc could fall upon him. 

"Friend!" he yelled, voice rough and cracking from the rapid shapeshift after a long flight in thin, dry air. 

The Orc stared at him, then up into the air. "Where…?" he growled. Maulfin followed his gaze up to the roof he’d almost hit, but no sign remained of Southran, Prince of Air.

"No time!" he wheezed, still winded from the fall. He pushed the guard’s weapon away from his chest in a way he hoped was reassuring rather than aggressive. 

"The Alliance dogs are trying to murder the Warchief!" the guard growled, but lowered his weapon. "Follow me!"

"Wait!" Maulfin called out. "What about the children? In the Drag?"

The warrior’s grizzled brow furrowed, perhaps in sympathy. Or impatience. "There was fighting there," he finally relented. "But most escaped into the Cleft of Shadows. The Cleft and the vaults below have been sealed off against the invaders." 

"I have to find them. They are my children." Maulfin held the warrior’s glare until the other Orc stepped aside reluctantly to let him pass. "Hurry," he growled. "The Warchief has need of all of us!"

Maulfin slipped back into wolf form and raced towards the little hill up to the Drag. The elevator to the clifftop and the zeppelin towers spat out two Alliance attackers, whose battered armor showed that the upper levels of Orgrimmar had put up quite a fight. A burst of light singed the fur on top of his back. He yelped and jumped aside, ducking against the wall below the butcher shop to keep cover. The humans yelled after him but did not pursue. 

Smelling unpleasantly of burnt ghostly fur, he raced down the line of barricaded shops along the Drag towards home, past bone-wreathed entries to the Cleft of Shadows closed off with the metal grates that remained from Garrosh Hellscream’s fortifications. The road was spattered with blood stains, red and green drying into a uniform brown.

He’d almost reached the crossroads at the bottom of the Drag when an axe barely missed his ears and thudded into the doorpost of the hut next to him. He froze, and shifted. The attacker slipped out of the shadow behind the orphanage. The woman was elderly, the white front and sleeves of her long dress smeared with red. Gray hair he’d only ever seen carefully combed back was tumbling around her face in a straggly mess. She carried a battle axe with both hands. He’d known her since childhood, but never like this.

"Matron," he whispered. She looked straight at him, but he felt as if her eyes were on something quite beyond. "Matron!" he tried again, knowing better than to reach out and try to disarm her. He’d played at the woman’s feet as a child, with his friends and her many charges. "The children – I’m looking for my son and daughter. It’s me, Maulfin, the herbalist."

She stared at him, axe still half raised in her hand. Gradually, some life crept through the battle rage. 

"Maulfin? Rageflame's child?"

It wasn't a name he'd chosen to bear since coming of age, but now he nodded.

"Yes, Matron. Have you seen my children?"

"The Tauren, and Felika… took them all down into the Cleft, into Hellscream's fortress," she said, slowly as if she had to remember what words were. "Your Nurrin is safe, and the little one too. When the humans came, we held them off outside the orphanage." Her hand flexed around the axe handle. "They did not make it past." 

Maulfin didn't flinch. "There are guards with the children?" he asked. She nodded.

"Gamon is there – he will protect them." Her hands clenched the weapon more tightly, and a glow crept into her eyes. "This is the orphanage I built, after the Second War. No one will take it from me."

He saluted her without mockery, one warrior to another. 

"They have come for the Warchief," he said, fighting down the temptation to rush towards the nearest entrance into the Cleft of Shadows to claw his way inside. The children were as safe as they could be, and had loyal protectors. "We have been called to defend him. There are warriors watching the Drag. You’ll have support should the Alliance return." 

She returned the salute, and disappeared back into the orphanage.

Maulfin took a deep breath, duty warring with desire, then he shifted into wolf form and ran back the way he’d come. He kept close to the walls of the Drag until he could slide down into the earthen trench surrounding Grommash Hold. The noise of the battle was louder here. Scorched spell marks, broken weapons and blood on the ground showed that the battle had raged here too before the enemy had concentrated on the entrance. The body of a guard, hacked to bits by Alliance swords, lay discarded under the shattered remains of a vendor stand. 

Maulfin shot out of the trench and across the road to hide in the shadow of the auction house stairs behind the large wooden mailbox. The square in front of the Hold was furiously contested, and the entrances to the auction house, inn and bank had been forced with axes. Obviously, the enemy had raided the auction house and the nearby huts first, then tried to spill into the Drag before the resistance had pushed them back. The ramps to the upper parts of the city were more easily defended. The north-eastern Valley of Honor could be sealed off by another set of massive iron doors and would be safe. Its huge barracks and stable areas for Orgrimmar’s war wolves made it a very unappealing target in the first place.

A group of Alliance warriors had bottlenecked a few patrons of the auction house and grunt defenders inside, trying to cut them down or at least keep them away from the main fight. Maulfin shifted back into Orc form and unloaded a barrage of lightning bolts into a burly human paladin he could reach on the auction house steps. The man grunted at the impact, more surprised than hurt, but half-turned to look at the threat behind him. Maulfin met his glare with an earth shock. The human’s eyes narrowed with rage. He raised a plate-gloved fist.

The Horde trapped inside made good use of the sudden distraction. 

"On the paladin at the back!" yelled one of the heroes, a wiry Troll hunter clad only in leather boots, loincloth and a bandoleer crossed over his chest. 

As one, all Horde weapons and spells in the room turned on the human, who was thrown into the door jamb and collapsed in a moaning heap before he could throw one spell at Maulfin. Screaming in triumph, the Horde fighters surged forward, pushing their enemies back and out onto the wooden stairs with sheer force. Maulfin saw several axes coming down on the fallen paladin. He wasn’t going to join his men anytime soon. 

The Alliance stumbled out, then turned to flee and join their main troop outside Grommash Hold. 

"Nice distraction!" The Troll hunter nodded at Maulfin as they spilled out of the auction house. "You stay with us, warrior."

Maulfin saluted him, face impassive but inwardly flushing with pride as he fell to the back of the group. 

"All right, Horde," the hunter yelled. "Let’s get these Alliance dogs off our Warchief!"

They followed the retreating Alliance onto the main square outside Grommash Hold, bordered by the main Orgrimmar bank to the south and the crossed ramps leading up to the Valley of Spirits to the west. The fleeing humans were pushing into the entrance to the Hold to join their fellow Alliance designated to prevent any Horde defenders from forcing their way inside to assist Vol’jin. The entrance, carefully designed as an eye of the needle to admit very few people at once, was leading in two narrow corridors around the round elevator shaft up to the Warchief’s personal quarters. Now, the design worked against the Warchief's own troops, being easily defended by a small number of enemy fighters.

Maulfin saw the Troll hunter who’d led the defense of the auction house fall back towards the smoking bank beside a half-decayed undead caster in black robes. They were wearing identical green tabards with a stylized black design. Guild mates, Maulfin realized, and pricked his ears.

"How does it look inside?"

The undead shook his head. "Too many of them got through." The ligaments of his cheek muscles moved as he spoke, visible through the frayed hole in his skin. Maulfin shuddered. 

"They sent wind riders out into the Barrens for a party of wolf riders to reinforce us from Mor’shan, for all the good that’s gonna do. And we called on every major guild for help. We have a handful of people from Coldfire and Not Immortal, and Glasswind is probably going to be here once they get out of Highmaul. Their reserve tank Canwine's leading the lot inside." 

Even Maulfin had heard of Glasswind, whose raiders dedicated almost as much time to defending the Horde’s lands as they did to fighting the Iron Horde in far-off Draenor.

"They won’t be here anytime soon then." The hunter grimaced. "Better call in whatever we can." 

More than one hero stepped out of the square's central teleportation device as they spoke, took in the battle that was raging all around, then quickly summoned a flying mount and took to the skies. 

"Bloody coward!" the Troll hunter screamed after one departing blood elf who sailed away in a graceful arc towards the city walls. "Stay and help us!" 

The blood elf didn’t even turn his head, and Maulfin’s heart thudded in dull despair. Was this what Hellscream’s war had bred, heroes who went off to distant lands to chase riches and glory, but couldn’t lend a hand to their own Warchief and capital in need? Or had it always been that way and he’d been too young and idealistic to realize?

"Bastard!" the Troll ground out, then flushed when the Forsaken eyed him with a lifted half-rotten eyebrow.

"Come with us!" The undead, who seemed to be the higher-ranking of the two, stepped forward towards the little auction house squad of heroes and guards. He nodded at the hunter and two other heroes. "You – take a few grunts and go for the right-side entrance to the Hold, really hard and obvious." He looked at the hunter. "I’m putting you in charge, brother. Draw all the attention you can." He turned to another hero in black leather garb that screamed ‘rogue’ who loitered nearby. 

"You – primal gladiator Martos, right?" The Orc faced him with a superior sneer. Maulfin noticed that his tabard was distinctly different from the other two. "Gather the healers." He pointed at a Forsaken priest in concealing robes and a face veil, a Tauren druid in tan cat form and, to Maulfin’s surprise, himself. "Wait until all Alliance are focused on the attack, then stealth the main group through the left entrance into the throne room."

As the small group of melee fighters hurried off to engage the Alliance at the right-hand entrance, the rogue’s mouth twisted. "You’re condemning your ‘brother’ to death then, Narithus?"

The undead took a step closer until the two were face to face. Maulfin was impressed that the rogue did neither flinch nor grimace. "I’ll have another guild healer incoming soon," he said calmly. "We’ll bring them back if necessary. But I need you to get people inside to make sure the Warchief lives. Or are you afraid of a fight you can’t vanish out of?"

The rogue snarled. Maulfin could see the thin skin on the back of his shaved head prickle. "I don’t fear anything!" he snapped and turned on his heel to stalk over to the healers and the handful of remaining fighters. The undead smirked and stepped back into the shadow of the burning bank as Maulfin hurried to join his assigned group.

The troop chosen to lead the pretend assault had charged forward, falling on the Alliance with shrill war cries. On impulse, Maulfin threw an earth shield around the hunter. The rogue gladiator – Martos – waved them forward to join the attack with a dramatic gesture, then whispered, "Crowd around behind them, but don’t go in. When you see my shroud of concealment, get inside it and quickly move to the left entrance. Don’t attack unless you have to, not before you’re inside the throne room."

Maulfin kept his axe close to his body and tried to stay out of sight of the Alliance while throwing a chain heal at the Horde grunts that had joined the assault. There wasn’t much use in aiming healing spells at heroes – their health pool was much higher than a normal citizen’s, and even a full-on healing surge would only have a small effect. Apart from that, he stuck close to Martos and waited for the signal.

It didn’t take long. The assault group pushed fiercely into the right-hand entrance, and Maulfin heard harsh shouts from inside. He couldn’t understand the rough Common the humans spoke, but the meaning was clear. The Alliance was calling for reinforcements into the corridor. When the first Horde hero stumbled back outside with a bleeding chest wound, the rogue hissed, "Come close!"

And from one second to the next, he vanished. Although Maulfin had been told repeatedly how eerie his own ghost wolf transformation looked to others, the rogue’s sudden disappearance made him gasp. 

An instant later, the air around them started to shimmer as Martos’ shroud of concealment came up. Their group, three Horde heroes, the two healers and two grunts besides Maulfin, drew together inside the invisibility field. Now, Maulfin could again see the shadowy form of the rogue in their midst. 

"Move through, don’t fight and try not to bump into the Alliance," Martos whispered. 

They stepped into the narrow, curved left-side corridor. There was one guard on their side, close to the entrance to the throne room, a burly human warrior in full body plate armor. Only his eyes were visible through the slit in his helmet. Although he observed the corridor as bidden, his head was half-turned, attention focused on the sounds of battle on the other side. Martos the rogue stepped around him, coiled like a snake, then struck the human through his armor with a blinding spell. The man’s eyes went out of focus. Martos pushed past him and shoved him into the round space of the elevator to the Warchief’s quarters. The platform was locked at the upper end now, and the human fighter stumbled blindly along the curved wall. 

"Inside!" the rogue hissed as the shroud around them started to fade. Maulfin raced forward and through the main entrance, stepping into the room and fading into the in-between state of the Astral Plane at the same time. It saved his life. 

The throne room was full of Alliance troops. It was dark and smelled of blood and magic and worse, and for a moment Maulfin was thrown back to the caverns underneath Orgrimmar where Garrosh Hellscream had kept his monsters during his final stand. Only the heroes had braved the very depths of the battle, of course, but he’d seen more than he’d ever wanted. The thing he remembered most clearly were the bloodcup blossoms glowing like dull red coals in Mornag’s dark braid in front of him, coiled tightly at the back of her head for battle. Sheer fright grabbed hold of him for a second, when he couldn't see her beside him in the dark. 

If he hadn’t been half-shifted into the Astral Plane, that moment of shocked reminiscence might have cost him severely when a sunfire blast rained down burning light on the doorway. Maulfin threw up his arm to shield his eyes and felt the heat hiss over him. Guttural voices barked orders in Common as the Alliance raid group noticed the handful of Horde that had broken through their blockade, and set their casters on the new threat. A hand between his shoulder blades slammed Maulfin out of the way of a full moon that would have obliterated him on the spot. He caught a glimpse of Martos' grim face before the rogue again melded into the shadows. Ducking behind the heavy iron foot of a torch holder, Maulfin tried to adjust his eyes to the dark interrupted by spell flares. 

The main Horde defenders were clustered around Warchief Vol’jin, who was crouching low in front of his throne and striking at the attackers with glowing daggers. Blood left asymmetric patterns against the white paint marks on the sinewy Troll body. 

"Well-timed, warriors!" the Warchief rasped as he blocked the strike of a dwarf paladin’s double-handed sword and sent the stubby creature stumbling back into its pack. 

A second group of Horde, mostly casters and healers, were shielded by grim Tauren warriors, one of them wielding a huge two-handed axe and wearing a silvery-white tabard. They held a loose formation on the dais of the blood elf delegation around Ambassador Dawnsinger. The defenders were fewer in number than Maulfin had hoped, and looked extremely battered. 

Most of the bodies on the ground were Horde heroes and guards and members of the Warchief’s court. Maulfin sent a chain heal into the closest members of the healer group he could reach. He felt the power of his earth shield flow back into him and hoped it had just exhausted its power rather than marking the death of the Troll hunter he’d put it on. He reapplied it around himself. If a healer’s life ended, he remembered the stern lecture of Telf Jolaam many years ago, the lives of those he protected would soon follow. 

"Break through to the dais and reinforce our casters!" he heard Martos yell and saw the rogue pull two dripping daggers out of the back of the enemy druid who’d rained sunfire down on the arrivals. The hulking owl beast shrank and shifted back into a slack-limbed night elf female, deceptively slight for such a deadly enemy. "Stay together – don’t let them split us up."

Maulfin looked around for the other two healers. The Tauren druid tried to fold her burly form against the wall and creep towards the dais while casting rejuvenation dots on every target in sight. He felt one washing over him like a warm sunbeam that touched his insides and kept shining there. Despite keeping close to the wall, he felt hostile eyes on himself. In a whiff of dead flesh and a rustle of cloth, the undead priest appeared beside them, the lower half of her face covered by a veil that left only her glowing yellow eyes visible. Her hands lifted, and Maulfin felt the air creak with power. Then a glowing dome of light blossomed over the knot of Horde defenders and the Warchief, shielding them from the full force of Alliance onslaught. 

"Now," she cried. They started towards the dais, the druid shifting seamlessly into a large horned bear. With an angry shout, three Alliance heroes detached from the attack group on the Warchief and raced to intercept them. Maulfin’s hand tightened around his axe. One of the Orc grunts who'd come in with them threw himself at the attackers, trying to head them off, but was thrown back. An Alliance sword to the stomach sent him to the floor in a heap, green blood pooling fast underneath him. Maulfin cast a riptide on him, the best instant heal he had, while trying to duck away from the other Alliance, a snarling Worgen slicing at him with two daggers. The wounded Orc twitched weakly as the enemy warrior raised his sword for the death blow. It was blocked, a mere inch from its victim, by another blade. 

A blood elf paladin, her elaborate helm dented and purple tabard hanging in tatters, knocked the attacker backwards with a furious retribution strike. "Not so fast," she snarled while the undead priest cast a heavy-duty healing spell on the fallen warrior. The Orc shuddered and climbed to his feet, his hand wandering to the cut, bloody armor over unmarked skin. It was eerie, Maulfin knew from experience, to be unhurt but still _feeling_ the wound. The priest shuddered with pain. Pure light magic took its toll on the undead. A few steps ahead, the Tauren druid was caught up in a pitched battle with a night-elf hunter and his cat, her bear fur bristling with protective magic. The priest beside Maulfin grabbed the arm of the dazed Orc and pulled him towards the dais. 

Which left Maulfin the sole focus of the Worgen rogue, claws and daggers reaching for him again. He smashed his shield into the monster and followed up with a frost shock. The creature shook it off with barely a snuffle, and snarled. His dagger grazed Maulfin’s sword arm right down to the thumb. The cut burned like fire, and when the creature drew back, Maulfin could see its blade shimmer green – poison! The rogue grinned, his snout full of knife-sharp fangs. 

The burning didn’t ease, but Maulfin's arm went numb. The axe dropped from his fingers. The rogue slashed at him again, impossible to miss, but then the monster stopped right in its tracks. 

Martos rose out of nowhere right between Maulfin and the enemy rogue, and a stun stopped the death blow in midair. Maulfin met the hero’s sarcastic glance as a barrage of arcane missiles slammed into the Worgen’s back and threw him to the ground, reducing him to little more than a burnt rag doll. He’d probably never woken from the stun. 

Maulfin looked across the room at the slight figure in the group of Horde casters on the dais, hands still raised and glowing in the dark with arcane sparks fizzing between her fingers. Even with her blue robes torn and dark hair spilling from her shredded hood, Maulfin recognized the blood elf mage that had smiled at him so unexpectedly only this morning. Even now, the frown marring her face made her look more like a scholar disturbed over her books than a battle mage. However, the Worgen might disagree. Their eyes met and hers widened in recognition. The ghost of a smile lit her face before she disappeared to the back of her group.

Martos let out an undefined growl of approval and ducked back into the fray. Maulfin slapped the shield onto his back, grabbed his axe from the ground with his undamaged hand, and slipped into wolf form. His right front paw was still numb, but three paws carried him safely into the dark corner behind the Warchief’s throne from where he could still reach Vol’jin and his guards as well as the closest of the caster group. The fury of the Alliance was directed against the latter, for landing a death blow on one of their ranks. Maulfin threw a healing tide totem in their direction and hid behind another torch holder before starting on the longer cast that would conjure a circle of healing rain underneath most of the melee fighters. Its blue mist mingled with the deep green of the Tauren druid’s efflorescence ring. 

Reeling from the sudden energy drain, Maulfin leaned against the wall, trying to be inconspicuous. If the enemy focused on him, one targeted attack would probably kill him. He’d received more protection already than an ordinary commoner could expect. Heroes tended to look out for their own, especially those they shared guild ties with. Guards and commoners, who provided very little assistance, were generally the first to fall. 

Vol’jin was bearing the brunt of the assault. Bolts of magic were slicing into his shields, burning away his life in increments, and he was locked in hand to hand combat with the Alliance’s main strongman, a human death knight in full body-concealing plate armor swinging a rune-engraved broadsword. Even from where he stood, Maulfin could feel the aura of corruption around the creature that sickened and weakened the defenders nearby. Maulfin used up most of the mana he had recovered to cleanse corruption off his allies, especially the two Orc grunts for whom the death knight’s presence alone was a considerable risk. 

His right hand still burned, swollen and powerless and quite a bit beyond what he was able to cure. Still, he could cast, and on this battleground he was entirely useless as a melee fighter anyway. As long as he could keep the poison in check, he'd live. Using his final mana reserves, he summoned a small healing totem at the back of the Warchief’s throne, where it might do some good unseen, and ducked back into the shadows to recover. 

The influx of reinforcements had given the defenders a much-needed energy boost, but as Maulfin got a clearer view of the battle, it still looked dire. The Alliance outnumbered the defenders almost two to one, and were very well organized. Their main force pressed the Warchief and his melee fighters, but a smaller unit now maintained a steady control on the exit, cutting off any assistance from outside. All of them were geared in the powerful armor styles which could only be won in deadly battles with the Iron Horde of Draenor. 

While some of the Horde heroes – like Martos the rogue, the undead priest or the hulking Tauren warrior – were also geared to the teeth, the defenders overall were a more motley band. One of the healers, a Troll monk whose jade magic lit up the room like a beacon when casting, looked almost too young to be a fully-fledged hero. Strands of mist seeped out from his hands and one of them curled itself around Maulfin’s numb arm. Warmth spread through it, chasing away most of the pain. He gave a bow in thanks that the Troll probably couldn't see. 

Though outnumbered, the steady heals emanating from the Horde caster group had stabilized the floundering defenders, which drew the Alliance’s ire. A few commanding shouts, and the majority of the melee fighters pressuring Vol’jin flanked off towards them, leaving only the death knight and a handful of fighters on the Warchief. The rest fell on the Horde warriors defending the casters, and Maulfin could see the defensive line disintegrate into a backwards scramble as healers and casters tried to retreat and find cover against the wall. 

Vol’jin rose up to his full height, body and hands smeared with blood. "Attack dem, warriors of de Horde!" he roared and delivered a vicious slash with his short sword. This time, the death knight fell back, hand pressed against his middle and doubling over. The Warchief was over him in an instant. An emerald green glow enveloped the undead knight, shielding him from attack while at least two other healers poured all their magic into him. Maulfin saw the death knight shudder as his torn flesh was knitted together, but then the creature drew himself up again and met the Warchief’s eye with hard blue stare. 'Whatever you do, it’s not enough', that challenging look said. 

Maulfin’s heart hurt. He wasn’t a hero, taught strategy in battle. But they could not win this fight. If all those who’d flown away from the battle had joined them, there would have been a fair chance. But now, the humans were just too many. He’d get to die with honor after all, like his half-forgotten brothers in Northrend.

The Alliance seemed to draw fresh strength from the recovery of their hero, and the attacks on the healers intensified. Spells relentlessly hammered the Forsaken priest, whittling down each new shield. 

"Peel for Mordicas!" the blood elf paladin yelled over the din. Maulfin saw the Orc rogue Martos appear behind a human warlock whose hands glowed green with a particularly destructive spell. The man jerked and slumped forward, stunned in mid-cast. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Maulfin caught a short shadowy figure sneaking its way past the two warriors that protected the caster group, their attention caught up in the whirl of blades and axes the Alliance unloaded on them. An enemy rogue. Maulfin reached deep into himself and let his power flow into what was probably the most perfect hex he’d ever cast. The Gnome’s small form shrank further and shifted until there was only a large frog that croaked once in surprise, then hopped backwards to find protection among the feet of his comrades. The hex wouldn’t last long on a hero, but Maulfin felt a rush of satisfaction for having bought the defenders a few seconds. 

The Forsaken priest – Mordicas – was still casting calmly under pressure, but Maulfin recognized the telltale slowing of spells and knew she was running out of mana. The Tauren druid behind her touched her shoulder in an innervate spell, mana flowing from one woman into the other. Almost immediately, another golden shield wall enveloped the entire group. Bathed in gold, the fighters pushed back against the Alliance with fresh energy, but Maulfin saw the Forsaken’s face twist in pain, skin chalky white even for an undead. A barrage of arcane missiles hit her in the chest right after the barrier faded, and threw her against an iron pillar. The young Troll monk screamed in rage and caught her in the familiar jade bubble that both shielded and increased healing. 

A sharp command in Common, and the closest Alliance fighters turned and fell on the Troll from all sides. A sword sliced into his belly, another into his shoulder. Green mist surged from his fingers as he pressed them to the stomach wound, trying to heal himself. Then an axe bit into the back of his neck, and blood colored his emerald hair red. 

Maulfin desperately cast a riptide to sustain life, but felt the heal bounce back at him. The priest and even the retribution paladin did the same, but their spell glows too died without touching the Troll. Maulfin felt a surge of rage and a whisper of fel fury in his blood. He fought it back. This was not the time – yet. 

Grim Alliance voices shouted in triumph as all their spells again concentrated on the Forsaken, whose protective sphere had run out. She turned, wrapping herself in a weak shield that quickly crumbled under another volley of mage and warlock missiles. Conserving his magic, Maulfin slid into wolf form and raced towards her, flattening his furry body to the floor as low as possible. A shadow bolt singed the fur on his back, but he skidded into the group around the falling priest and threw down his strongest defensive totem a mere instant after returning to Orc form. The circle snapped up, ringing the entire group with magic. He felt strength being pulled from him and everyone around him, pouring into the Forsaken. It was a dangerous spell, stealing life from the healthy to restore the fading health of the dying. With every enemy focused on the most powerful healer, however, it was worth the risk. 

The Tauren druid next to him gave a quick nod of approval as her lips moved in an incantation that would restore the entire group's health. Glowing drops of energy formed around them, soothing Maulfin’s singed back and starting to ease the exhaustion from the spirit link totem. Just then a band of smoke shot past and wrapped around the druid’s throat, cutting off the spell. She clawed at the silencing tentacle to no avail, three-fingered fists opening and closing in frustration. 

A second later a huge striped hunting cat disengaged from the Alliance ranks and lunged at the priest's throat. Dark, foul-smelling blood sprayed up as she screamed and fell back under the cat’s weight. She rolled away and threw the animal off her, then raised both arms in a psychic scream that sent it running. She wavered. The light veil over her face was soggy with blood. Another gesture, and a carpet of gold spread out from her hands across the entire room, healing every ally in its way while burning the enemy. Just a second later, an arrow hit her straight in one eye, killing her instantly. 

"Mordicas, no!" the blood elf paladin wailed, and Maulfin recalled them both wearing the same purple guild colors. A tall night elf hunter stepped forward, a second arrow cocked on his bow and the cat now ducking at his feet. Maulfin had regained the energy for another hex, and whispered the spell. The hunter shrank and became a frog, hopping in place on the ground while his pet turned in confusion and sniffed its shapeshifted master. 

"Calm down and fall back!" commanded the tall Tauren warrior who’d led the defense. "Fight as defensive as you can. And don't panic!"

"There’s too many of them, Canwine!" the paladin screamed back. "If your lot wouldn’t prefer to waste time in Highmaul…" 

"They’re coming!" the Tauren roared. "Narithus is holding them outside, and Glasswind is on its way to Kalimdor. We have to play for time!"

With an angry sob, the paladin turned away and swung her sword at the nearest Alliance. 

Maulfin again took cover behind his torch holder. He threw a chain heal at the two surviving Tauren warriors defending their ranks, then froze when he noticed a shadow of movement behind him. Instinctively, he shifted into the Astral Plane. He caught sight of an ugly, bearded face with a vengeful expression framed by huge ears just before a dagger stabbed upwards. Momentum tangled up in the Astral Plane, the knife left a shallow cut on his neck instead of slicing his throat.

"Down!" a clear voice called across the din, and he dropped to the floor without hesitation. A cold blue stream of magic whirled above him and enveloped the gnome rogue. When it faded, it left behind a small, shaggy and thoroughly confused sheep. He looked up and caught the eye of the blood elf mage again. A crooked smile formed on her lips for a moment. Maulfin slid into wolf form to put as much room between himself and the rogue as possible.

"Group up at Vol’jin!" the Tauren warrior Canwine ordered. If anything, his gruff voice helped to keep panic at bay. 

"Aye!" the Warchief boomed. "But spread out. Frontline at me, casters back at de wall."

The Tauren hero bowed his head gratefully at the Warchief as the battered defenders rushed towards their assigned positions, Maulfin among them.

Just as they raced towards the throne, the sheeped rogue shed his spell, suddenly transforming back into a Gnome in the midst of his enemies. The Horde turned on him as one, blades and spells cutting him down before any of his allies could interfere to save him. Maulfin, adding a frost shock to the kill, felt a surge of satisfaction.

"They are gonna come for us now," the Tauren Canwine growled, wiping his axe on the gnome’s tunic with grim amusement. "So stay defensive, and stagger your cooldowns."

The druid healer touched Maulfin’s arm, surprisingly lightly despite her heavy three-fingered hand. "Is your healing tide totem ready, shaman?" Maulfin nodded, feeling it tingle inside him. "Use it when they pressure us too hard. I should have tranquility back if we survive their first go."

Maulfin nodded again. "Understood." 

He placed himself against the back wall of the Hold, behind Vol’jin’s stone seat in a way which allowed him to keep at least half the group in casting range while keeping some cover. 

His eyes passed over the remaining casters. The healers were reduced to the druid, a nervous young blood elf priest whose armor looked very shabby, especially compared to the fallen Forsaken, and Maulfin himself. He was the only surviving commoner now, apart from the Lady Dawnsinger, who wasn’t exactly 'common'. The blood elf ambassador was surrounded by the bodies of her fallen entourage. Her elaborate green gown looked distinctly worse for wear, although she still managed to hold herself as arrogantly upright as she did when passing through the streets of Orgrimmar ahead of her escort. Nurrin liked to watch her, whispering "Pretty!" through the gaps in her baby teeth. The ambassador was standing in the shadow of a metal pillar just far enough from the Warchief’s throne to not seem as if she was hiding behind it. A rune-covered stiletto glowing in her hand showed she meant business.

There were mutterings among the Alliance’s death knight tank and their leaders, and tension rose among the defenders. The last assault would be coming soon.

Martos the rogue appeared next to Maulfin, stepping out of the shadows in a way which was starting to become familiar. 

"If your heals do too little, see if you can interrupt a few casts on the other healers," he advised. 

Maulfin nodded thoughtfully. Apart from that one time during the Siege of Orgrimmar, he’d never been in a fight as massive as this. And then, he’d been assigned to heal a small group of ordinary grunts. He’d wind-sheared enemy spells in duels, of course, but here, it hadn’t even occurred to him to use it. 

"Brace yerselves!" Vol’jin growled as the Alliance melee surged forward as one.

A warm prickle ran through Maulfin as the Tauren druid’s efflorescence spread out on the ground and sent shivers of nature healing up into everyone. He reached inside himself, and added his own elemental healing rain, mainly covering the frontline fighters around the Warchief. A healing stream totem behind and the green swirl of his earth shield around him, and he was as ready as he would get. 

The Alliance frontline hit them like a hammer. Weapons clashed as the enemy, led by the death knight tank, pushed forward to break through their defensive line, while their more lightly armored fighters tried to flank around to get at the Horde's healers and casters at the back wall. Maulfin felt a rush of heat and dizziness and realized that the death knight's debilitating aura was touching him. He drew back a little, distracted by the queasy feeling of the healing circles beneath him trying to combat the damage. A nameless Tauren warrior beside Vol’jin screamed and fell to his knees, his stomach torn open by a polearm. The Warchief roared, daggers glowing with shadow magic as he threw himself forward into the attack formation. His defenders followed. Battle cries rang out as they pushed back the attackers, and like a flash the sickening aura was gone. 

The respite was short-lived, however, as the enemy pushed back almost immediately. Something brushed across Maulfin, sickly like a harpy’s kiss, and made his stomach roil. Beside him, he saw the other two healers’ faces twist. The blood elf paladin moaned and wiped a sleeve over her face in an unconscious gesture. Maulfin’s eyes scanned the Alliance ranks and found the culprit – a tall human warlock in purple robes that was blanketing their ranks with curses. At his feet, a crouching imp threw minor but painful fire dots at the Horde frontline. Maulfin kept his eyes focused on the sorcerer as he renewed his totems and healing rain. The blood elf priest, long amber hair obscuring his face, was busy cleansing curses. However, his casts came slowly, skin tinged blue with enemy frost magic.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maulfin saw the warlock start to cast the spell that would allow him to harvest his curses and severely damage anyone afflicted. He saluted Martos in his mind and sheared off the cast. He could practically feel the fury radiating off the Alliance sorcerer. The imp surged forward in his direction, but then sidled off, unable to get past the fighting. Despite the frost slows, he’d bought the priest some time to pick off the curses. He had to be running low on mana, however. Dispels were expensive. Still Maulfin breathed a sigh of relief when the curse was cleansed from him at last. Another fighter fell next to the Warchief, a sinewy Troll enhancement shaman with electrical blue hair that had forced back the attacks with wide swings of his warhammer. Vol'jin had turned aside and was again dueling the death knight, trying to position him as far away as possible from the defenders. 

The muscles knotted on the Warchief’s naked back, and Maulfin’s healer eye told him that Vol’jin was wounded, exhausted and that the constant exposure to the death knight’s aura of decay was taking its toll. If Vol’jin fell, and that darkness struck the Horde troops unchecked…

The blood elf ambassador Dawnsinger struck like a snake from beside Vol'jin's throne, stabbing at lesser armored opponents with her magical dagger. It was the Alliance death knight who noticed. He caught her in a death grip as she left cover to sink her dirk into the back of a distracted Draenei hunter, and pulled her straight to him. She gasped at the decaying aura, but coiled at him like a snake instead of trying to struggle free, aiming her dagger at the ice-blue eye slits of his helmet. 

He caught her wrist and snapped it, watched her bite back a scream, then grabbed her by the throat and broke her neck without any more effort. With a contemptuous snort, he hurled the slight body at Vol'jin's feet. 'Can't protect your own,' the gesture said. The ambassador's long green skirts spread out on the ground like the petals of a cut flower as the Warchief's face contorted into a mask of fury.

"Keep your positions!" Canwine the warrior yelled, but this time, the melee’s best efforts were not enough. Two swords came at the huge Tauren. He blocked one with his weapon, but the other left a gaping wound in his leg. He buckled, roared and swept the attacker away with a shake of his mighty horns. A regrowth from the druid and a flash heal from the surviving blood elf priest landed on him as one, keeping him on his feet, but three Alliance fighters used the opportunity to crash through the weakened defense. 

"Holy Mother Earth!" Maulfin heard the druid mutter behind him. It could be either curse or prayer. Shields started to glow all around until two of the three Alliance threw themselves on the young priest. He screamed in fright and stunned one of them in a spectacularly quick chastise. The sword blow that could have sliced his arm clean off deflected off his shield, but the sheer weight of the armored attacker pushed him to the floor. Suddenly, the air was filled with the hiss of spells and arrows as the Alliance pushed into them. 

"Totem, now!" the druid called out, and Maulfin threw down his strongest healing totem, feeling energy drain from his body even as it started to pulse life into the fighters around him. The blood elf paladin slumped to her knees beside him, the armor on her back half singed. From her tabard, only burned scraps and some purple tassels remained. On instinct, Maulfin swapped his earth shield onto her. 

"Let me," the Tauren druid said and pulled the wounded paladin to the very back of the Hold, laying her down on her stomach. The Tauren's misshaped hands began to glow in a vibrant green. A fireball snapped towards them, igniting the torch Maulfin was using for cover into a basket of hissing flames that bit at his arms and chest and face. He doused them with a riptide and used its second charge on the druid, whose long braids had been badly singed. 

The enemy’s advance had brought their fighters on top of the Horde, and all their casters and healers were now in range. Maulfin wouldn’t even have noticed the dark shadow in the back if he didn’t see the characteristic glow of a pyroblast building up around the creature’s hands. It illuminated a shaggy mane of fur, pointed ears and a snout full of pointed teeth. The rest of the man-wolf hybrid was thankfully hidden by a long dark robe and the shadows. The spell – one of the deadliest he knew fire mages possessed – could kill a commoner instantly and wound a hero considerably. The paladin, already badly injured, would not survive a cast. He drew on what little remaining energy he possessed and cast another wind shear at the Worgen, interrupting him in mid-cast on his main school of power. The creature let out a howl of rage, claw-tipped fists raised in mid-air without effect. 

A guttural command, and something broke away from the massing Alliance and shot straight at Maulfin. He recognized the striped hunting cat a second before it was above him. He barely had time to call his earth shield back to himself and push his physical shield between his upper body and the snarling cat. The animal’s weight bore him straight to the ground and its hind paws left deep scratches on his bare legs. 

He swallowed a scream and pushed the animal to the side, using his shield as leverage. It hissed and clawed around the metal, opening Maulfin’s cheek and shoulder with a nasty swipe. The earth shield protected him from more than flesh wounds, but they stung and blood trickled into his mouth. He threw down his weak healing totem, too drained for a riptide, and kicked the cat hard in its furry middle. It curled in on its stomach, more from surprise than shock. Green eyes spat fury at him. 

"Let me," the voice behind him repeated, and then the cat’s eyes lost focus and closed as it fell asleep on the spot, in the middle of battle, with no defense against the druid’s hibernation spell. Maulfin turned his head, but the Tauren was already healing again.

An arrow grazed her hip, but she just hissed without losing focus. A number of over-time heals danced across her skin, swirling down to soothe the wound. The paladin still lay motionless behind her at the side of the Hold, but she was breathing. There were two melee on the young blood elf priest, though, who was still on his knees trying to outheal the damage inflicted on him. The Tauren leader, Canwine, was trying to peel the attackers off with wide swings of his axe, but failed. A barrage of arcane missiles and a single fireblast hit the kneeling blood elf at once. His body jerked and fell back. Canwine screamed in rage and pushed the Alliance melee back, cutting off their cheers with a brutal strike. 

"Hold!" he yelled. "Help is coming! Just a few more minutes!"

The Warchief, too, was bleeding from several open wounds now, and was leaning heavily on his throne for a moment. An arrow was embedded in his side. He pushed himself off the armrest and raised his weapons, but Maulfin could see his strength waning fast. He heard a growl, and hot animal breath washed over him again. Reflexively, he dove out of the way. The cat, awakened from its hibernation, sprang past him but twisted around on impact to pounce again. An icy blast shot past him and encased the animal’s paws – and the feet of the Alliance melee hero nearby – in frosty shackles. 

Maulfin struggled to his feet and gave the blood elf mage – somehow he’d come to think of her as ‘his’ mage – a quick nod of thanks. He looked up just in time to see a purple arcane missile come at him before the impact threw him into the back wall. The impact hurt like hell and Maulfin could already see the second barrage of the triple blast hissing through the air. An instant before he was hit again, his eye caught the enemy caster, palms already glowing with another pulse of arcane light. Maulfin drained the last of his mana with the wind shear that locked the mage’s final barrage before the second blast hit him. This time, all he felt was pain, and then nothing.

It was the pain that woke him again. His head spun as if a dust devil had made its home there. Breathing made the ache worse. Through burning eyes, he stared up at the advancing Alliance troops, at his few remaining comrades who drew closer together around the Warchief. A red hunter’s mark appeared on the Tauren druid’s forehead, casting it in a demonic glow framed by horns. They would go for her now, the last bastion of healing on the Horde side. An Alliance battle cry, and the enemy struck. Out of the corner of his eye, Maulfin saw Martos stun a charging warrior, but more surged past him like a tide. 

Maulfin forced himself up onto his knees and raised his shield before him even though his chest felt like crushed glass that might shatter if he moved. The death knight kept hitting Vol’jin, keeping a circle of decay underneath his feet the entire time.

"Casting tranquility," the druid called out very calmly. She turned sideways to protect herself as much as possible from interrupts and the soft glow and hum of the spell swept out around the room. The pain in Maulfin’s chest loosened. 

The spell did not go unnoticed. A human warrior and a paladin in plate armor rushed forward to interrupt her, and even the death knight tank turned his head, looking for an opportunity to strangulate her. The hunting cat, finally freed from its shackles, forgot about Maulfin and sprang at the druid under orders from its master. The Tauren Canwine tackled both enemies in a charge, using his entire body weight including armor. The enemy warrior went down, but his sword left a nasty gash in the Tauren’s shoulder. 

The hunter’s mark didn’t waver, however, and an instant later both a shadow priest and the snarling Worgen mage were in interrupt range. Maulfin’s blood elf mage, body encased in the blue crackle of frost armor, threw herself between the casters and the druid, catching both the silencing spell and the mage’s counterspell with her own magical shield. Her braid whipped around her head in a tattered tangle. But she smiled at the two healers as the tranquility spell built up to its full power. Somewhere in the distance, Maulfin heard something that sounded like the wind laughing.

An instant later, the mace of the Alliance paladin, blazing with light, hit the mage’s temple. Maulfin saw her eyes break even before she started to crumble. Canwine bellowed with fury, chasing the cat away with an intimidating shout and slashing at the warrior he’d taken down until he no longer moved. 

Maulfin stared at the body of the woman who'd saved his life - twice - and had looked at him not as a nameless nobody, but as a fellow Horde warrior. She'd fallen on her side, hair and hood hiding the wound in her skull. Suddenly he thought his wife. Dying together in battle was a romantic ideal among the clans, although the possibility of Mornag dying alone in her duties had always overshadowed their lives. Now, it was him who would die alone in battle, and he was fiercely glad she was not there. There was no glory, only rage and blood and shattered bones. 

The druid's tranquility had ended, and suddenly Maulfin could move again. The pain wasn't gone, but at least his chest no longer felt as if half his ribs were fractured. 

"Vol'jin!" the Tauren healer gasped. 

The Warchief was near collapsing, swaying on his feet and barely able to block the death knight's strikes. The Tauren had used up her last mana and slipped into bear form to keep the attackers at bay with a maw full of teeth and huge paws. Maulfin gathered what little power he had restored into another small healing totem behind the throne and a final healing spell at the dying Warchief. Feeling like an empty skin of water, he moved back. There were Horde bodies strewn all over the ground. He missed Mornag more than he ever had in his life. He'd never find out if he could repay Air for the help it had lent, or if perhaps he already had.

A trio of Alliance melee rushed at the hulking Tauren warrior Canwine, pushing him backwards. The paladin stared at Maulfin, gray eyes cold behind the visor of his armor. He raised his hammer again, free hand glowing with deadly light. Gritting his teeth, Maulfin slipped the axe out of the sheath on his back and raised his shield. It was pitifully symbolic, and they both knew. He touched the braid of Mornag's hair that had slipped into his palm. The paladin smiled. The spell glow around his hand flared as he lifted his hammer to strike.

"Glasswind!" 

The shout rang out over the battle, loud and joyous and drawing everybody’s attention. 

"Glasswind is here!" Martos the rogue stood straight upright at the door to the throne room, a bloody dagger in each hand and his head cocked to the side as if listening to an invisible voice. "Glasswind and the Mor’shan riders!"

Maulfin used the distraction to throw himself backwards and dive behind the Warchief’s throne. A slight bloom of hope took root in his heart. The paladin’s judgement spell went way over his head. Now he could hear a commotion from the entrance. Horde voices were barking orders, sounds of struggle as the Alliance’s seemingly unstoppable assault faltered. The Warchief threw himself into the fray of melee that had battled Canwine to the floor and hurled them aside with his last fading strength. The Tauren leader struggled to his feet. Blood was dripping from several wounds, but his eyes were glowing. 

With one final push, the rescuers broke through the Alliance cordon at the door, decked out in the barbaric gear of Draenor, weapons glowing bright. Almost all of them wore the same white and silver tabards that Canwine also sported. Among them, Maulfin saw Narithus, the undead warlock with the decayed face who’d commanded the defenders outside. Behind the heroes of the Horde followed a steady stream of Orc grunts.

A Troll with bright white hair and gleaming tusks came forward, and even Maulfin, who wasn’t familiar with the business of heroes, recognized Berys, the famed leader of Glasswind. 

"Heals on the Warchief and Canwine, and an Innervate on Melda," he ordered briskly with a nod at the Tauren druid who still snarled at a group of attackers in bear form. "Casters and rogues, keep their troops occupied. Melee – with me."

All eyes turned to the Alliance death knight standing before Vol’jin's throne. The air seemed to crackle as he and Berys made eye contact. Quite obviously, they had clashed before. The Troll smiled through deadly teeth. "I wanted to do this for a while."

He nodded at the small figure next to him – a Goblin girl that looked almost comical in grey plate armor with green pigtails and blue, glowing eyes. She giggled and raised a spike-covered mace that looked larger than her entire body without any effort. Blue runes froze the air around it. They struck as one at the human death knight, with what looked like long familiarity. The guild leader's form twisted and shifted into a large bear, still recognizable by the white stripes against the gray of his back, and a gleaming white mane. The human death knight growled and swung his broadsword, but the guardian druid spun out of the way despite his massive size. One huge claw sliced into the man’s thigh, cutting through armor and pale flesh. A second later, gnarled roots wrapped around the feet of the undead human and bound him in place. 

Along with the raid healers, Maulfin poured all the energy he’d regained into Vol’jin, whose flesh regenerated right in front of everybody’s eyes. 

"Thank you, Earth Mother!" the Tauren druid breathed fiercely as she turned her regenerating powers on Canwine.

The Warchief, restored, rose to his full impressive height for a moment, then raised both daggers and stabbed them into the death knight’s back. The creature howled and fell forward, dark blood seeping out of the gashes in his armor. Maulfin shuddered. It looked like an insect whose chitin shell had been crushed. 

The Goblin girl delivered a crushing blow to his head with her spiked mace that shattered the dark helmet and brought the enemy to the ground. Maulfin could see him looking around desperately for his healers, but those who were still standing had been pushed back out of reach and were struggling for their own lives against the Glasswind raiders.

"You should have stayed in Stormwind," Berys of Glasswind pointed out almost gently. The enemy tank glared up at him, straining in vain against the roots that bound him. A glance passed between Warchief and guardian, then Vol’jin inclined his head a fraction. The druid swung his polearm and rammed it into the throat of the fallen enemy. Black gore splattered up and the death knight’s chest deflated. The blue glow faded in his eyes.

Their champion’s fall seemed to drain the last resistance from the Alliance. Most of them were dispatched where they stood. A few stealthers tried to vanish and escape through the exit, but were chased out of hiding by area-of-effect spells. Few, if any, invaders would leave Orgrimmar alive this night. 

"Forgive our lateness." Berys bowed to the Warchief. "We had a long way to travel."

"Ya still arrived in time," Vol’jin replied. "Bravely fought, warriors. De Horde – and its Warchief – owe ye a debt of gratitude."

Berys nodded, then turned to his raiders. "Clean up, and good work." His eyes scanned the room and landed on the rogue gladiator whose wounded arm was being tended by an Orc shaman hero in silver-white Glasswind colors. "I was touched to hear you greet us with so much enthusiasm, Martos." A mocking smile touched his tusks. "I never knew you cared."

The rogue snarled, then shrugged. "Well, numbers can come in handy once in a while." 

"I do appreciate you backing up some of mine," the guild leader said. "In spite of our differences."

Martos pulled his leather vest over the fading scar on his shoulder. "We’re Horde. We defend our own." 

He turned away, catching Maulfin’s e as he passed, and nodded in barely visible acknowledgement. Maulfin bowed. The rogue had saved his life repeatedly, and treated him like a fellow soldier, if an inexperienced one. Berys’ eyes, on the other hand, passed through grunts and commoners as if they weren’t even there. Maulfin watched the rogue stalk off. 

The Glasswind healers were busy calling back their fallen comrades from the dead and tending to the wounds of those who had survived. The rest of the bodies were borne away. A unit of Mor’shan riders took up positions as the Warchief’s temporary bodyguard until a replacement could be called in. Their officer spoke to the Warchief quietly. Maulfin recognized Kraish, second in command of the Orgrimmar Wolf Riders, and paused. His eyes scanned the Hold, blocking out the vivid colors of the Horde heroes. 

And then he saw her, some steps apart from the other grunts across the room, wolf rider tabard and braid grey with dust, searching the bodies of dead warriors with a stony expression that only someone who knew her very well could read. There was dread in those cool eyes. He let go of the torch holder he’d been leaning against and struggled for balance for a moment. He was still dizzy on his feet. 

He let out a familiar low whistle, the signal they used to alert the children, which caught her attention immediately. Their eyes met, and he saw her pupils go dark with relief. She strode over to him, not much slower than the pouncing hunting cat earlier. Only the long-practiced dignity of an Orc warrior stopped it from being a run. He wrapped his arms around the solid, familiar body, relishing in the sheer reality of the scale armor digging into his skin. Her arms closed around his waist almost painfully.

"Mornag," he murmured into her hair, shielding her face against his neck along with her warrior’s dignity. She exhaled, trembling, and he could feel some of the tension loosening in her body. 

"The children are safe," he whispered. She raised her head with a light brush of fangs along his cheek. 

"I know." She looked at him. "Matron Battlewail told me when we rode in. Gamon came with his volunteers to clean out the alliance outside." She squeezed him tightly again. "I did not expect to hear you had gone to war on your own."

He grimaced. "I didn't expect I would either."

Maulfin’s eyes fell again on the body of the blue-clad elven mage. The heroes had raised their own guild mates and friends, and most of them had recovered. This one, however… either she had no guild or comrades nearby, or the call of the spirit healer had not reached her. He remembered the faint echo of airy laughter he'd heard in his head when she’d fallen and knew he would not see her again.

_Do not forget what you owe – though you might find out about that sooner rather than later…_

Maulfin shivered. The elements could be cruel and capricious when teaching you a lesson, air most of all. He leaned hard on Mornag for another moment, then straightened his back. There was nothing left for them to do. 

They made the customary bow when they passed the Warchief’s throne. Unexpectedly, Vol’jin looked up and interrupted his conversation. Faint scars from the battle still showed on the Troll’s body, a sign of how close he had come to death.

"Well fought, Maulfin, Mornag." Maulfin nearly gasped – was it possible that the Warchief truly remembered them from Razor Hill or the chaos of the Siege of Orgrimmar? Vol’jin’s lips quirked. "I don’ forget dose who fight for me. Dat’s more dan some ‘heroes’ will do." 

Beside him, wolfrider commander Kraish nodded grimly. 

"But ya’ve done more dan enough for de Horde today. Now go an' get yer young ones."

Mornag threw a quick look at her commander, who nodded. She saluted gracefully to him and her Warchief and they made their way through the grunts and heroes still milling about. 

The last rays of the evening sun, still warm but now a softer shade of orange, greeted them when they stepped out of Grommash Hold. The stench of blood and sweat and magic was much less here, although grunts and commoners were still repairing damage and cleaning up bodies. Heroes crowded in small clumps, excitedly discussing the afternoon’s events. By morning, Orgrimmar would show little signs of the failed invasion.

Maulfin and Mornag walked close together, arms brushing until they reached the back of a small hut just off the Drag. There, they clasped hands and pulled each other into the small gap between the hut and a large cactus plant to hide them from passers-by. 

They embraced again, and this time, their lips met with all the desperation they’d hid in front of their leaders. Maulfin wrapped both hands around Mornag’s braid, wilted flowers soft underneath his fingers. He would go to Ashenvale, soon, he promised fiercely, and replace the wilted bloodcup blossoms with fresh ones to echo the life pulsing inside her. She smiled, drawing a warm line down his throat with her mouth and a touch of teeth. Then she clasped his wrist and the thin braid of her hair around it. 

"We’ll go and get them together," she murmured into his ear, wrapping Maulfin’s own disheveled braid around her palm. "I cannot worry about whether you’re alive a second time." He nodded, pulling her close again. 

"Thank the elements for watching over you today!" she whispered, melting against Maulfin’s chest, and in that moment, he was very grateful she could not see his face. 

That would be a conversation for the next day, or maybe for the early hours after they’d seen to the children and – very likely – snuck up to the mountains above the Valley of Wisdom to make love to feel the lives they’d not lost today. He’d consider his shift in alignment to air and the obligations to repay his debt to the air prince Southran later. If he – or rather, not he – hadn't paid it already. Either way, the course of his life had taken a different direction today, but for now, he just celebrated being alive.

They finally walked back into the Drag towards home, hand in hand under the first pale sickle of the moon, as their city breathed in the cool evening air and returned to normal.

~END~

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated with affection and quite a bit of nostalgia to the World PVP players and guilds of Defias Brotherhood-EU in MoP and WoD who inspired this story. Those were good times!


End file.
